5/08/2008

A (Very) PROVOCATIVE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT ON GUNS

ABOUT 90 percent of the people shot in the city last year were African-American. While figures are unavailable, it is assumed by most that close to 100 percent of the perpetrators of these shootings were African-American.

Almost all the firearms used in these shootings were obtained, possessed and carried illegally by those who perpetrated the shootings. If, as is constantly claimed, we MUST DO SOMETHING to stop this violence, then why not ban African-American residents of the city from owning handguns?

The answer is that that is patently unfair and discriminatory. To judge an entire group as a problem and punish all members of that group, irrespective of their individual actions, is unconscionable.

Let's just tell the truth. The instant Mayor Nutter gets the right to pass gun laws for Philly, it will become a practical impossibility to own a handgun or any other weapon the city deems "inappropriate."

I've done nothing wrong, but my rights are to be removed step-by-step because others - entirely outside the law - are using guns feloniously. How is this any less outrageous a suggestion than that black people shouldn't be allowed to have guns?

"Some very interesting laws are being passed. They don't name me; they don't say, take the guns away from the niggers. They say that people will no longer be allowed to have (guns). They don't pass these rules and these regulations specifically for black people, they have to pass them in a way that will take in everybody." -- Eldridge Cleaver, 1968.

No ban will affect criminals, but bans can aid them. All those black criminals likely are ALREADY banned from possessing a firearm because of their felon status.

In LA we just saw a young black teenager killed by an illegal alien out of jail after felony charges, with a handgun he illegally acquired and carried concealed without a permit, less than 24 hours after release.

By law, Special Order 40 from LA's mayor, LAPD could not report the killer as an illegal so ICE could have picked him up at the end of his sentence and taken him back to Mexico. He already had a number of felony convictions before this last one and he wasted no time in arming himself and killing a young black man for daring to walk down the street.

Criminals are already banned from possessing firearms. See how effective it is.